Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/349

 502us1$15I 02-08-99 07:59:23 PAGES OPINPGT

Cite as: 502 U. S. 183 (1991)

191

Opinion of the Court

imposed such a condition on any such alien.6 We therefore accept the Solicitor General’s representation that the INS does not intend to apply the bond condition to prohibit authorized employment. Accordingly, our decision today will not answer any of the questions concerning the validity of a regulation having the broader meaning ascribed to this regulation by the Court of Appeals. We thus have no occasion to consider whether the release of an alien who is authorized to work could be subjected to a “no-work” condition. IV Section 242(a) of the INA grants the Attorney General authority to release aliens under bonds “containing such conditions as the Attorney General may prescribe.” 7 In ruling 6

The individual plaintiffs alleged that enforcement of the no-work condition would make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to employ counsel and to obtain their release pending a determination of their deportability. None of them, however, alleged that he or she had been authorized to work in the United States before commencement of his or her deportation proceeding. See App. 34–41. (Although one plaintiff alleged that he had been employed for about six years, he did not allege that he had been authorized to accept work. See id., at 36.) 7 Title 8 U. S. C. § 1252(a) provides in pertinent part— “Apprehension and deportation of aliens “(a) Arrest and custody; review of determination by court; aliens committing aggravated felonies; report to Congressional committees “(1) Pending a determination of deportability in the case of any alien as provided in subsection (b) of this section, such alien may, upon warrant of the Attorney General, be arrested and taken into custody. Except as provided in paragraph (2) [regarding mandatory detention of aliens convicted of aggravated felonies], any such alien taken into custody may, in the discretion of the Attorney General and pending such final determination of deportability, (A) be continued in custody; or (B) be released under bond in the amount of not less than $500 with security approved by the Attorney General, containing such conditions as the Attorney General may prescribe; or (C) be released on conditional parole. But such bond or parole, whether heretofore or hereafter authorized, may be revoked at any time by the Attorney General, in his discretion, and the alien may be returned to custody under the warrant which initiated the proceedings